Banned Books & Stolen Looks
by raining-down-hearts
Summary: "She was pink, certainly, from her hair to her lips to her painted toes, though she was not, perhaps, sugary sweet— regardless of what secret theories he might hold regarding the taste of her skin." Collection of random Kakasaku drabbles; will probably grow in time.
1. Chapter 1

So yeah, here, have these. Fair warning, I like my Kakashi neurotic and awkward and emotionally haunted- there'll be no 'sex god' Kakashi here.

* * *

She was colorless, pale and bleached on the stiff hospital pillow. Even her ridiculous hair looked somehow _less._

He took another look at the steady beep of her heart monitor and then leaned over to pinch her cheeks; the rush of color was a relief. She looked like _Sakura_ again, like she was all ready to hop up and beat him half to death—

"Ow," she said, cracking one eye and giving him an unimpressed glance. The pink in her cheeks was already fading. "Will you please stop being so melodramatic?"

Damn it all, he was _not _dramatic. "Who taught you to fake sleep so well?" Kakashi demanded, raising a brow to hide his internal embarrassed horror. "It surely wasn't me."

"Isn't _that_ the truth," she mumbled, lifting a hand and eyeing her IV with professional skepticism. "My face hurts now."

"You're always complaining about being pale," he retorted, slumping down in his chair and lifting _Tactics_ higher in front of his face. "I just thought I'd help."

She sighed. It sounded painful. Then again, she'd had practically a whole cliff fall on her— and that was a memory he'd give a hand to forget, the rumble and her startled spring back, her eyes locked on his as she turned to run from heavy chakra-laden earth… She was looking at him now, too, just as if she knew what he was thinking, with that heavy press to her lips that made each beat of his heart come faster and faster in frantic sequence. "Yeah, I bet. Because helping's what you do best, _right_?"

That sounded lonely, and upset and— suspiciously like a trap. He lowered his book an inch to peer at her. She only blinked back innocently. He took a few seconds to go through his usual routine when she looked at him like that: step one, melt like a teenage boy at the sight of her fluttering eyelashes, step two, become painfully aware of his own pathetic crush, step three, say something vaguely rude and/or incredibly lame to throw her off and then dive out the nearest window. Often there was a step four in there in which he admired her biceps, but not today— too many bandages.

It had always worked in the past, but today, for some reason, what came out of Kakashi's mouth was, "Do you need anything else? I can go get you… do you need anything?"

She very nearly clapped her hands, injured as they were. "Really? You're not going to run? Well, do you think you could sneak me something that's not hospital food?"

Crap; there was no way to beg off now, she'd kill him dead before she'd let the opportunity for food slip away. He had to open his mouth twice before he could croak out a faint, "Sure…"

She frowned at him. "Kashi?"

That fucking nickname would be the death of him. He was _sweating_, by all the gods, his palms were clammy and if he weren't wearing gloves he'd probably have dropped his book already. "Sure," he mumbled again, and then he did finally dive out the window, ignoring Sakura's startled squawk.

* * *

It took him half an hour of aimless wandering through Konoha's scorched streets just to get his head on straight, to remind himself that she was young and wildly talented and heading nowhere but up, whereas he was closer to forty than anything else and had a caravan's worth of baggage.

So he reminded himself, deliberately and painfully, worrying open the old scars with a resigned sort of inevitability, and then he slunk back into the hospital to wave her favorite tempura under her nose,with a chocolate milkshake to finish it off.

_Pathetic, _he thought. He'd even paid. Her delighted smile and her terrible attempt to wipe whipped cream on his nose were quite nice, though, and somehow he ended up lurking in her room— in the _hospital_!— for another hour before coming to his senses and escaping again to go mow his non-existent lawn.

Sakura, astoundingly, didn't chuck her empty milkshake cup at his head or anything when he told her he had to go. She just raised a brow at the flimsy excuse and then offered him a stiff shrug. "Okay. I guess you won't get hay fever, anyway, with the mask, huh?"

"Guess not."

"Check the lawn for animals first, though. One time my dad mowed over a rabbit and it was really horrible."

He eyed her sideways, even more deeply confused than he generally was around women. "Oh. I'll keep that in mind."

"All right." Her smile stayed fixed and tired. "Go on, get out while the going's good."

He went, feeling vaguely off balance, craving something sweet.

* * *

"How's Sakura doin'?" Naruto said innocently, later that day while they were sparring, and Kakashi nearly drowned beneath his own water dragon.

"What?" he choked, panicked for no discernible reason.

Naruto squinted at him. "I asked how Sakura was, she threw a stethy— a stepo— she threw one of those listening things at my head when I tried to see her last night and I think it's still stuck in the wall. She was in a really pissy mood, I mean, even for her."

"Ah." The mist began to clear and Kakashi took a ragged breath. "Well. She'll be just fine, I imagine."

"You _imagine_?" Naruto's blue eyes were wide and more than a little irritated. "You haven't been to see her either? Every time you end up in the hospital she sits by _your bed_, jeez, sensei, and she says I'm an ungrateful little twerp!"

Naruto was by no means little any more, in fact he had a good inch on Kakashi, but 'twerp' was spot on. Kakashi glared at said twerp and tried very hard to ignore the little voice in his head that painting an extremely vivid picture of Sakura sobbing dramatically at his bedside like a heroine in a novel.

Kami, she'd been right to call him dramatic. "I've got to go hunt some rabbits," he told Naruto, wandering off.

* * *

He brought her another milkshake that night, slipping past the nurses with his very best notice-me-not jutsu.

"Sugar's bad for people in recovery," she told him between brainfreezes, smiling from ear to ear. "I should be eating veggies."

"You caught me. I'm sabotaging your recovery via sweets so that you have to stay here longer and I don't have to worry about you breaking into my apartment to do my grocery shopping."

"Well, you never have anything in the fridge! I can't train with a dead man," she pointed out, grinning.

"I eat," he mumbled, mildly insulted. "I can give my own dogs their baths, too." And he could water his own houseplants, he could vacuum his own floor and get his own mail— now that he thought about it, she was at his damn apartment more than him, and what a funny thing _that _was, because he didn't even blink when he found her passed out on the couch anymore, or when he caught pink hairs in his brush.

She rolled her eyes and offered him the milkshake, shutting her eyes tight as he pulled his mask down to take a slurp and keeping them shut until he poked her in the forehead.

"Ow," she said. "You're extra mean to me lately." He looked pointedly at the milkshake, and she sniggered, holding her ribs. "Okay, well, you're abusing my face."

He snorted before he could stop himself, and her laugh, delighted and light, and the way the blue glow from the street signs outside iced the line of her throat as she threw her head back—

"Gotta go," he said thickly, and he leapt out the window so quick he nearly smooshed a passing squirrel.

* * *

She was out the next day, as Kakashi discovered when he came in through the hospital window and severely startled a little old lady who'd been sleeping.

He dodged the remote she threw at him and made his escape on autopilot. He'd gotten into a bit of a routine, then, which was silly because Sakura had only been in the hospital three days. Nonetheless, habit was habit, and he wandered about a bit, lost, before heading home sourly, following the trash in the gutters like it was family.

"Hi," she said, a bit sheepishly, as soon as he opened his door. She was sitting on his couch, Pakkun on her lap, feet drawn up under her, just the way she always sat.

"Hi," he whispered, possibly a long time later.

"I sort of missed you," she said, with the air of someone leaping off a cliff. "I hope you don't mind I came in."

"Not at all," he said, watching one hand twirl in her hair, a chipped pink-painted fingernail and pale pink locks, and pink cheeks… "You're blushing," he said in utter amazement, though it came out perhaps a little accusatory, because she threw one of his own throw pillows at him.

He evaded, thankfully, because it shattered one of his kitchen chairs. "Erk," he said, in a totally manly way, and then he hastened to clarify. "Not that that, uh… matters. In fact I barely noticed."

She put her fingers to her temples, muttered under her breath for a moment— Pakkun huffed a laugh, ominously— and then sent him a glance like sweet tea and summer nights. "I missed you," she repeated. "And you— you bought me a milkshake, I mean, you brought this on yourself!"

He paused, closed his eyes to all the tender nervous depths in her voice, then said warningly, "I'm not taking my mask off for you, Sakura."

"I didn't expect you to," she said, resigned and a little amused, tucking her feet tighter up beneath herself like a happy cat. Kakashi blew out a long breath and went over to settle beside her on the couch. He slung his arm along the back of it, and after a moment, glancing carefully up at him from beneath reddish lashes, she tucked herself into his side.

It was nice, after all that, just simply _nice_, and they both laughed when Pakkun jumped down with a disgruntled squeak, and he looked at her, and he kissed her.


	2. Chapter 2

"It's _not _like that, Sai, you seriously can't take television sex seriously! If you try to learn how to please a girl that way you might as well give up and do it with a blow-up doll!"

Well, despite being rather unexpected in broad daylight in the middle of the village, that did sound interesting; Kakashi drifted closer, using all his considerable ninja skills and ending up halfway concealed behind a bush, hair sticking out. Sakura, arms flailing as she shouted at Sai, didn't appear to be in any state to notice his half-assed eavesdropping.

"Really. Promise me. Promise me you will _never_ copy anything you see onscreen without asking me or Naru— without asking me first. Okay?" she said, clearly agitated.

Sai blinked at her. "Why?" Just like a little kid, damn him; Kakashi smothered a laugh and cocked his head, the better to listen. The way Sakura was turning red indicated a really entertaining storm on the horizon.

To her credit, though somewhat disappointingly, she only took a deep breath— which did all sorts of interesting things to her chest, dammit, and now Kakashi was the one blushing like a schoolboy— and rubbed her temples. "Because," she said slowly. "The relationships in the media are almost always unrealistic, and they would be very bad examples for you to, uh, learn from."

Well, now. "That's just unfair," Kakashi interjected, emerging placidly from his shrubbery; Sai only raised an eyebrow, but Sakura made an outraged noise that was suspiciously like her slug summons.

"Kakashi!" Now when had she dropped the _sensei, _he wondered? Not that he minded, not at all, not even a little. His named sounded too good on her lips. "Are you _listening?_"

"To the conversation about porn you're having at the top of your voice in a public place?" he wondered, grinning at her and delighting in her steadily increasing rage. "Yes. Sorry. Was that wrong?"

She went even redder. It did not look attractive with her hair, sadly. "It's not _porn_," she hissed. "It's a movie! A romantic movie!"

Kakashi waved a hand. "Nuances," he said airily, before rounding on Sai. "So. What'd you watch? Would you recommend it? Were there any hot nurses in it?" Sakura twitched at that. "How about depraved kunoichi willing to do anything for their mission?"

Several old women passing by on the street looked suddenly to be on the verge of heart attacks. Kakashi refused to feel badly on the grounds that cliches like hot nurses and depraved kunoichi should shock no one anymore, and secondly, Sakura had started it.

He told her as much, in a suicidal moment, and only just dodged her fist, despite being entirely ready for it.

"You're getting fast, hag," Sai said genially.

She gritted her teeth and planted her world-class-weapon fists on her hips. It was ridiculously attractive; Kakashi groaned. "You _both _are idiots," she growled. "Sai, you're grounded from television for a week until you learn that just because a movie star pinches a waitress' bottom does _not _mean it's no longer sexual harassment for _you_ to do , you're just— grounded. Because."

The men blinked at each other as she gave them a final, pointed glare and then spun away on one heel to stalk away in the time-honored, earth-shaking manner of offended and terrifyingly powerful kunoichi since the world began.

Before following her, Kakashi clapped Sai on the shoulder— the poor idiot hadn't improved much since he'd first joined Team Seven, really, despite trying with bulldog tenacity, but he deserved credit for trying to build people skills. Hell, Kakashi was nearly thirty-seven, and he _still _hadn't figured that sort of thing out.

The thought was rather depressing, really. Somewhere along the way he'd just given in and accepted his social ineptitude, in the same sort of resigned depression with which he tolerated Gai's jumpsuits, but it did seem to cut sharper around pretty girls. He shoved his hands in his pockets, caught up to Sakura, and said idly, "D'you think I should watch more dirty movies?"

She actually stopped mid-step to gape at him, mouth open wide enough to catch not just flies but whole swarms of things, and he paused to rethink his words. "Oh. Ah— let me rephrase," he said hastily, sidling away and keeping a wary eye on her fists. "I meant— er, that is-"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you asking me if I think_ romantic_ movies can possibly help improve your record-breaking string of failure with the opposite sex?"

He sighed, ego suitably smashed; Sakura was awfully good at that. "I miss the days before you could come to the bar with me and watch my failures. Back then you still thought I was a suave ladykiller."

"I haven't thought you were suave since I was twelve," she assured him.

"Aw. You're so sweet," he said dryly.

"I know," she said haughtily, sticking her nose in the air; an attack of the giggles took over a moment later and she dropped the act.

He smiled at her, linking his hands behind his head and falling in step beside her. "So where are we going?"

"I thought I'd make you dinner," she said, far too nicely. "Since you were so very helpful with Sai."

Damn her. A home-cooked dinner, always a temptation for a bachelor like himself, even if it _was _cooked by Sakura and thus quite possibly deadly— but she was sure to have something up her sleeve in revenge. He regarded her narrowly, and she looked back with wide green eyes, the very picture of sweet innocence. "On one condition," he said finally. "I get to make dinner tomorrow." Then at least he could get his comeuppance for whatever she was plotting tonight.

She was visibly pleased at that, though. "Okay!"

He paused, instantly rather off balance, as he usually was when things went right in his life. "That's it? Okay?"

"Um… yes?" She raised a brow. "You know I like your cooking."

When the _hell _had she decided that? He'd only cooked for her a few times, and always under duress with the appropriate loud accompaniment of protests. There was the week after her mission to Wave, when she'd been laid up with a broken ankle— but he'd had no choice then, if he'd let Naruto cook for her she'd have starved or been poisoned. And then there was the suspicious percentage of Sunday nights he'd spent at her place, whipping up rice and stir-fry, but she was always doing last minute paperwork Sunday nights for Tsunade and forgetting to eat at all—

"Stop freaking out, please," she said mildly, staring at her shoes as she lengthened her stride to outpace him. "If it makes you feel better, I hate your cooking and have been eating it this whole time just to lull you into a false sense of security so I can turn your culinary secrets over to our enemies during the next war."

"Cold," he said, after a split-second of irrational panic— the enemy didn't need to know the truth of his hard-earned sriracha mastery. "Very cold, Sakura."

She sniffed. "Whatever."

"Are you angry at me?" he said, lips twitching,

"Yes," she said decisively. "Very angry."

"_Cold_. After all I've done for you…"

"After you've pushed porn on my idiot teammates?"

"That— I did _not _do that. I simply encouraged. And it was team_mate_, singular."

"Lies!" she laughed, throwing her head back. The sun caught her face, lining it with golden glints, and for a single dangerous moment he was entirely caught up in the freckles sugared across her cheeks.

"Um," he managed, quite eloquently, and then, after an excess of furious thought, "So, dinner?"

"Sure," she said, smiling at him. "How does chicken and curry sound? I won't even have to go to the market."

Which meant she'd kept his favorites in her refrigerator. His mouth went dry and his pulse started to pound in a way he hadn't felt in years. "That's fine," he gurgled after a long pause.

"_Very _suave," she teased. "Like an _Icha Icha _hero."

His world shuddered, then realigned itself along the axis of her wide, shining smile. "You've read _Icha Icha?"_

"Well, bits and pieces. Here and there." She hit him again with that innocent, doe-eyed expression, and he nearly broke his ankle stepping up the stairs to her apartment.

"You're a devious woman. It's terrifying," he said once he'd recovered, deciding that, for once, honesty was the best policy.

She positively beamed. "I know. Just for that, I might make dessert, too."

Kakashi decided not to push his luck and kept silent; she awarded him a fond smile with just a hint of tolerant affection. _Good enough, _he thought, and, _better than I deserve_.

Just as if she could read his mind, she said happily, "Get ready for dinner like you've never had, Kakashi Hatake, and I expect _praise_, understand?"

"Yes ma'am," he said meekly, and he let his hand brush hers for half a second before ducking into her kitchen to start tea.


	3. Chapter 3

He was _not _staring at her smooth, tanned, sinewy biceps. No, no, definitely not; he was a grown ass man and she was, what, twenty-two?

"Twenty three," Sakura said indignantly. He flinched.

"I, uh, I didn't know I asked that out loud," he mused, reaching hard for 'cool' and suspecting that he was failing terribly.

"Well. You _did. _And that just shows how much attention you pay to my birthday parties!" she hissed, nostrils flaring, before backhanding one of the enemy ninja into so much pink gook against a mountain.

Kakashi winced, despite said enemy-smooshing being one of the more tame exhibitions of her strength he'd ever seen. "I_ went_, didn't I?" he tried, sliding under someone else's kunai and planting his own in their gut before shoving them away with one foot.

She scowled, clearly unamused. "You showed up for ten minutes and then left without even finding me to say hello!"

"Big parties aren't my thing," he said vaguely, trying yet again (for possibly the millionth time, despite near-constant failure) to look suave, even as he fell flat on his ass dodging some jerk's sword.

Sakura, of course, noticed and snickered loudly while executing a really clean spinning kick to some doomed soul's jaw. "It sucked," she panted, dipping lithely beneath her opponent's blow and sending him flying with a flick of her wrist. "I didn't even get to talk to you. On my birthday! You didn't have to _stay, _I didn't expect you of all people to, but—" Punch, dodge, kick, kick, and a satisfied, predatory grin that had his heart thumping overtime, and when had _that_ started to happen?— "You should at least have said _hi!_"

"Would it have made you happy?" he countered, getting tired of their stilted back-and-forth and efficiently drowning the three remaining enemy nin under a deluge of roaring water dragons. If he happened to get Sakura and her thin red vest a little wet, well, that was just a fortunate accident, of course.

She crossed her arms immediately, damn her, and flicked dripping pink bangs out of her eyes. "Yes," she said firmly. "Yes, it would happy, even if it was just for a second."

There went any possible dregs of cool he'd managed to claw from the indistinct nether. "Oh," he mumbled, squinting off into the distance just as if he didn't feel suddenly awful. "Well. I didn't know."

Sakura sighed, dusting off gloved hands. "It's fine. Like I said, I didn't expect it from you. Don't worry about it. Come on, let's get back to camp." She started off without even waiting for him, stepping fastidiously over the still body of someone she'd crushed, and Kakashi was left staring after her with his jaw hanging like a gormless moron.

Lately, she did seem to make him feel that way a lot.

After a moment he remembered himself and took off, settling in step beside her with his hands linked behind his head and elbows in the air. "Sakura," he started.

She snorted in a very Hokage-esque way; out of instinct, he slid out of her reach. "Don't use that tone with me, Kakashi Hatake!"

"What_ tone!_" he protested, aggrieved.

"The one you used to use on me when I was twelve. It doesn't work any more. I'm all grown up now, remember?" She shot him an inscrutable sideways glance from eyes like shattered sea glass and then swung easily up into the trees.

Damn him, but he _did _know she was grown up— was rather haunted by the fact, actually, in the best and most frustrating of ways. Kakashi very definitely did not allow himself to look at her ass while he followed. In fact, he fought that urge so strongly that he ended up _ahead _of her. "Slow poke," the stupid part of him called gleefully, palming another branch.

She, predictably, squawked, "What! You're _dead_, buddy!" and then she was squarely abreast of him, pushing with chakra-loaded muscles through the trees, hair whipping around like rabid cotton candy.

Come to think, that was a very good description of Sakura. Kakashi mused on it as he followed a strict two branches behind her all the way back to camp; she was pink, certainly, from her hair to her lips to her painted toes, though she was not, perhaps, sugary sweet— regardless of what secret theories he might hold regarding the taste of her skin.

She skidded down into the campsite with an impressive spray of dirt and narrowed her eyes at him as he followed a hair behind. If she hadn't been grinning like a fool, it'd have been almost intimidating. "You let me win!" she laughed, chest heaving—_  
_

Not that he was looking. Horribly afraid that his blush might be creeping over the top of his mask, Kakashi promptly shielded himself behind _Tactics_and wandered off, mumbling something indistinct and flapping a hand at her as he went. She only cursed at him and started to make their fire, grumbling all the while and looking frightfully adorable even while snapping a small tree into kindling with her bare hands.

He returned after a half hour or so, bearing an armful of mushrooms that he was fairly sure weren't poisonous; she took them gladly and he felt marginally better. "Nice fire," he told her mildly.

Sakura quirked a brow. "Thank you?"

"You're welcome." Small talk; how he hated it, mostly because he was and had always been atrocious at it, but he did feel the need to say _something,_preferably blindingly witty. He cast about for an idea, scuffing absently at the rotting leaves under his boots, then added lamely, "It's very warm."

So much for wit.

"Fire generally is." Nonetheless, she laughed, and then threw another branch into the flames, sending up a constellation of sparks towards the dulling blue-grey twilight.

He watched the orange reflections light up her tide-pool eyes and said rather stupidly, "It's a good fire."

She stared at him for a long moment, skin catching warm highlights from the fire, hair purpling in the deepening shadows, then forced out a chuckle and turned to stir the soup. "Fire is fire."

The tension in her shoulders was so familiar, so painful; he watched her move from under hooded lids and thought of what he _wished _to say, that everything she made was beautiful, from soup to craters in the earth to the lopsided cake she'd brought him on his last birthday— and _she_ certainly hadn't blown it off like he had hers. She'd even brought treats for the dogs. Some friend he was._  
_

But that was too cheesy to say, and lame, and anyway she'd either laugh it off uncomfortably or punch him through several mountains; Kami knew he'd seen her do the latter to Naruto and Sai more than once, and even if _they_ never learned, he was called the copy ninja for a reason and he liked to think he had at least a modicum of survival instinct.

So he kept painfully quiet just as he was used to doing, chewing on his lip beneath his mask, and when she fell asleep, he kept watch a whole hour longer than he was supposed to, just to watch the lush reddish sweep of her lashes against her freckled cheeks.

* * *

"Hold _still," _Sakura hissed.

"But it hurts," he complained, wriggling under her green-glowing hands.

She spared him a single unimpressed glance, but she did pat him on the head. "Sorry. I'll try to hurry. If I go too fast you'll have more of a scar, though."

"Oh well," he mumbled, happily risking death to sneak a peek down her vest while she was intent on his bloody elbow. "When you get old like me you'll have lots of scars too."

"I have lots of scars _now_," she muttered, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth as she concentrated.

"Do you?" he said, rather airlessly, because now his imagination was conjuring up all _sorts _of interesting places those scars could be lurking.

"Uh huh. The biggest one's on my side." She wove one more wash of healing chakra into his skin and settled back, yanking his arm into her lap to do a little final poking and prodding.

"Ouch," he lied; she only grinned at him before releasing his arm and standing up.

"You're good to go."

"Am I?" he pondered, heaving himself to his feet and grimacing as his back cracked audibly.

"I could help with that, you know," she scolded. "You're the only one of my boys who doesn't like my healing massages!"

He didn't just like them, he _loved _them, that was the potentially very embarrassing problem. "Don't worry about me," he said mildly, smiling at her and enjoying her use of the word 'my' even as he wondered how long it had been since he'd been called a 'boy'.

"But I do worry!" she groused, and then she stomped off. He barely caught her added, "All the damn time!"

* * *

"Kashi," Sakura said later that night, poking at a log in the fire with a ten-foot glaive she'd lifted off an unlucky bandit earlier that day. "Why'd you pick me for this mission?"

He'd been half asleep, dozing on the ground next to her, but he blinked awake at her tone and took a good look at her before answering. She was perched very still atop her makeshift rock seat, not looking at him, only a lock of her hair lifting in the warm evening wind. "We've gone on a lot of missions together," he said at last, swallowing and trying to will away the hollowness in his chest. Obito would tell him he was being a fool, but Obito had never been the best at giving advice.

"We haven't been, lately," she said quietly. "To be honest, I thought I'd, um, maybe done something. You stopped coming over, you stopped training with me, you left my birthday party so quick…" She shot him a quick sideways glance and then started stabbing the poor log again, handling the massive glaive like it was a toothpick.

"No. You didn't do anything wrong. I just…" He paused, and she let him think, just as she always did when they were speaking about something serious. It was one of his favorite things about her, the instinctive way she seemed to know that he often needed time to collect his thoughts, to occasionally jar his brain back into order. "I just needed a little space," he said finally.

"Oh. Okay. As long as you're not mad at me." A few years ago she'd have said that with downcast eyes and a worried frown aimed at nobody but herself, but now she looked at him levelly, simply waiting. He tried suddenly to view her the way he would a stranger, let his eyes trace her slender neck and the crisp green lines of her seal, and all he could think about was how very appealing she looked sprawled in the dancing firelight.

"You've really grown up, Sakura," he said, almost before he realized it. She did have a way of loosening his tongue— but then, he trusted her.

"I'm aware," she said dryly, blushing only a little.

He snorted and reached over to pat the top of her boot. "No, I'm not mad at you."

"Mm. Well, if you've gotten the space you wanted, I sort of miss the dogs," she said with another sidelong glance and a depth to her voice that stopped his breath in his lungs.

"They miss you too," he assured her, once he'd recovered. "They _really_ miss you."

"Yeah?" she said, lips twitching. "Good."

They sat together in silence for a while, as the last of the daylight faded away and the nighttime birds began to sing wild songs. Sakura looked very pensive, and she only blinked when he sat upright, one shoulder just barely brushing her leg.

"I think perhaps space is just a little overrated," he said, very quietly, counting the freckles on her scabbed knee.

She tugged on a piece of his hair, and when he glanced up at her, her smile was so big and bright that his Sharingan activated all of its own accord, the better to carry her face in his memory forever. "_Good, _you idiot," she said fondly.

He was blushing again, damn it all, like he was a genin all over again, but when he opened his mouth to try and say something appropriately cool, she shook a finger warningly at him, and they fell back into silence together.


	4. Chapter 4

not beta'd; sorry for any mistakes! ;)

* * *

He'd nearly forgotten them, the times Sakura'd perched cross-legged on his back while he did push-ups, nervous little fingers digging into his shirt and occasionally letting out a squeak when she wobbled too much. Sometimes she'd get bored, start picking at her nail polish, and he'd end up with green flakes all over him after. She'd been twelve then, and a particularly _small_twelve at that, probably twenty pounds lighter than either of the boys at the time, which was why he'd always encouraged _her_ to be the one to play ballast. Anyway, it would've been beneath Sasuke's prickly dignity, and Naruto would have refused to shut up and driven Kakashi insane.

She'd only done it a few times, and after all, they hadn't been a team for very long. Kakashi preferred to do his sweating alone. There was no need to ruin his public image as a lazy vagabond, because it was really handy when he needed to escape a social situation, and anyway Team Seven had splintered soon after he and Sakura even _began_ to get comfortable around each other.

"And now I've made myself sad," he said mockingly to the twittering bluebird next tree over, before yawning, wriggling to a more comfortable position on his branch, and placing his book carefully over his face to block the hot late-morning sun.

"You are kind of a gloomy guy," someone below him observed thoughtfully; Kakashi hiccupped in startlement, deftly caught _Tactics _as his little jump sent it sliding off his face, and then leaned over to peer down at Sakura, her green eyes framed beautifully by the swaying spring leaves.

"Speak of the devil," he mumbled, swallowing too loudly. When had she learned to cloak her chakra so damn well?

She frowned, crossing her arms; the metal guards on the backs of her gloves gleamed threateningly. "I'm nothing but sweetness and light, thank you very much."

There was mayhem in that frown. Kakashi winced and plucked a leaf to rip up. "Sweetness, light, sugar and spice?" he ventured hopefully.

Sakura— twenty-one now and dead-level with Naruto weight-wise thanks to her muscles, though still an inch shorter— snorted and waved a finger gleaming with minty chakra. "Flattery won't get you any fewer broken bones, Kashi, now get your ass up and let's get this over with. Naruto's off fetching everyone."

They both sighed simultaneously, and Kakashi swung down, tucking _Tactics_carefully into his pouch. "Naruto has caused me more misery than _Danzou_," he said grumpily, leaning against the tree and rubbing his temples as the tell-tale sounds of an approaching crowd became audible in the distance. Naruto being Naruto, all of Konoha was probably here to watch the fiasco, and when Kakashi was forced to beat Sakura in front of all of them, he just _knew _she'd take revenge in some awful, devious way, most likely helped along by that evil mastermind Ino. He'd have to watch his back for weeks, and forget going to the hospital if he got hurt; all the nurses were in Sakura's thrall, they basically worshiped her, and they'd inject him with the plague if she asked.

Sakura, astoundingly, looked sympathetic. "Ah, I know. But at least you did a good job always keeping his expectations low. He doesn't actually expect you to _do _anything anymore."

"That's true, that's true, thank Kami." Kakashi considered his accomplishment for a moment, not without some pride. "And I know you've got low expectations for me too, so you wouldn't be all that sad if I went suddenly missing before this silly fight?"

She chortled and patted him on the arm; he, rather horrified with himself, only barely resisted the inane urge to flex his bicep. "Sad, until I got to hunt you down and murder you."

This was getting out of hand, dammit. He narrowed his eyes at her, lifted his headband, and let the Sharingan spin a bit, which usually intimidated people but only made Sakura grin more blindingly. "You talk a lot of trash for someone about to fight the guy who taught her everything she knows, Sakura."

"You haven't been my sensei in years," she teased, poking his arm again. "Besides, you can't blame me for this! You're the one who challenged me to—"

"A duelllllllllllllllll!" Naruto shrieked, appearing out of nowhere and sliding up next to them in a cloud of dust. "A duel, that's what he said! Like in the movies!"

"I. Was. Drunk," Kakashi hissed, whipping out his book instinctively to cover his pink face. "And it wasn't even my idea, it was Gai's, he started to talk about youth and hidden emotions and conquering new territory and I got confused, all right?"

"Whatever," said Naruto, flapping a hand and sending a distinctly ramen-scented breeze wafting over them. "Everyone's on the way, okay, and Tsunade agreed to be judge—"

"Oh _shit_," Sakura whimpered.

"—So you two better get ready! This is gonna be the fight of the century!"

"I thought your fight with Neji was gonna be the fight of the century," Sakura said dryly.

"And your fight with Pein," Kakashi put in, smirking.

"And the time you fought Madara! Wasn't that the fight of the century too?" Sakura was trying valiantly to keep herself from laughing, but it only made her sound weirdly high-pitched.

Naruto sneered at them both. "They _all_ were! Man, you two get mean when you're together. Anyway, good luck, Sakura, I'll be the one with the pompoms!" With that he dashed off towards the center of the training grounds.

Kakashi and Sakura looked at each other, then at the cloud of approaching dust.

"We could run," he said, seriously considering praying for the first time in years.

She raised a brow and smiled crookedly. It was mesmerizing. "Aw, is the widdle Copy Ninja afraid to take on his old student?"

Those were fighting words if he'd ever heard them. "Don't be mad at me when I win, okay?"

"Don't be mad at me when _I_ win!" With that, she stuck her nose in the air and stalked off.

"Wrong, uh, wrong way," he called, ducking in advance to dodge the pinecone she promptly flung at him. As she flipped him off, he noticed her nails were bright, neon pink.

—-

Sakura, covered in dust and with blood dripping down her face in a vivid red mask, was out of kunai, but so was Kakashi. He had more chakra left than she did, but she had much better control than him and could make what she had last much longer.

Still, he'd been holding back. "Sakura," he called, straightening up with a grimace as his back popped and yanking a few senbon out of his thigh, "Come on. I have a mission next week. I don't want to get hurt and miss it. Let's call it a draw."

There was some booing from the crowd. Gai let out a shocked gasp and began to denounce Kakashi's lack of dedication, and Tsunade, predictably, began spouting incredibly profane insults at him. Sakura only shook her head, panting, before lifting the bottom of her shirt up to wipe at the blood. Kakashi was momentarily hypnotized by her incredible abs, but when she looked back at him from across the rubble and destruction, the dark look on her face brought him back immediately.

"I could always tell when you were trying to give me an excuse," she said quietly. "I don't want one now. I'm not worried."

Ouch. He studied her, then gauged his chakra reserves again. This was embarrassing, to be honest; he'd expected a sort of teasing, friendly spar, not a serious battle in front of what felt like half the damned village. The spotlight had never been his thing. "You've never beaten me when we train," he pointed out, tugging irritably on the collar of his vest.

She gritted her teeth, looking splendidly warlike, and the crowd went silent as her chakra trembled perceptibly. Kakashi began to feel vaguely wrong-footed, as if he was blind to a joke everybody else was in on. It was not a reassuring sensation, especially for a naturally paranoid and suspicious ninja.

"Because I wasn't _ready _yet!" she barked. "I didn't think you'd act like a stupid sixteen-year-old boy who just made chuunin and challenge me to a freaking_duel!"_

"Ready?" he said in utter confusion. "Wha— ohshitfuck!"

Suddenly much closer, Sakura glared at him from behind her gory mask and swung again. He leaned out of the way just in time; her fist sent chunks of rock flying over the treeline.

"You!" she shrieked, lunging again with terrifying speed.

The crowd was yelling now; he heard that awful Ino girl shouting for Sakura to 'show that jerk what he's missing!' which only added to his bewilderment. "Me_what?! _Why are you so pissed off?" He sent two shadow clones flying her way and sank underground out of desperation. She promptly smooshed his clones, stomped her foot and sent him rocketing back up into the sunlight, of course, but he used the dust cloud that resulted to hit her with two powerful water jutsu that she shrugged off like a damn duck.

They washed the blood off her, though, thank Kami, because he really didn't like looking at it. "Because," she hissed, flicking drenched pink bangs out of her eyes and cracking her knuckles in a fashion that made his stomach drop and his eyes widen. "Just— you just— I thought I'd have more time before this stupid fight, okay, to get better, and you're not even trying!"

"That's not— shit, I need that particular bit of my spine! That's not true!"

"Bullcrap," she snarled breathlessly, managing to gain the upper hand and rub his face in the dirt for a second before he substituted himself for a package of ramen that Naruto'd had stashed in his pocket. "Hey, cheater!"

"Nobody ever made a rule we had to stay in one place," he informed her, rather gaspingly himself, from his new place in the crowd, cringing as everybody turned to look at him. Kami, this was awful. This was by no means as enjoyable as their usual morning sparring, which had begun two years ago out of boredom and continued as they discovered they both enjoyed gossip, a good book, and terrible puns. But this wasn't that, this was a spectacle, turned from playful to dark at some point he hadn't noticed, and he wanted to crawl out of his skin. As much as he knew this was Drunk Kakashi's fault— the absolute bastard— he had to fight down some resentment towards Sakura for agreeing. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why she'd said yes. Vaguely he remembered her saying something about his eyelashes, but that was all, other than a pretty pink blur and Gai's sympathetic eyebrows.

She shook her head, and drops of water from his jutsu rolled down her neck, streaking clean trails in the dust and sweat. His sharingan was on, and with it, it took him an eighth of a second to categorize her injuries: two hurt ribs, a probable concussion, three senbon wounds, two gashes from kunai, and one long slice on her leg from a nasty wind jutsu he'd learned twenty-two years ago, on the battlefield, wearing his _own _mask of blood—

"I forfeit," he muttered, one hand hovering over his suddenly malfunctioning lungs, and with a whirl of smoke he was gone.

—-

His apartment was safe enough, if he kept the lights off and the door and windows locked, but Mr. Ukki was poor company, especially considering most nights lately Sakura was over, cooking him dinner in an effort to "Keep you from succumbing to scurvy, you awful bachelor stereotype, now learn to like vegetables already or I'll clobber you!" He hadn't realized how accustomed he was to her company, to her chatter and the sizzle of the pan and her laughing protests when he snuck in to steal a beer from the fridge.

But he _had_ gotten used to it, somehow, at some point, and now everything was dull and quiet, including his brain.

Finally, when night fell and he was sitting alone in the dark, listening to Naruto shouting and banging on his door for the third time, he summoned his dogs.

Only Pakkun came, though, and he looked more wrinkly than normal, which meant he was irritated. "Sorry," said Kakashi, clearing his throat. "Were you up to something? This isn't important or anything—"

"We were with Sakura," Pakkun interrupted, giving him a disapproving look.

"I— wait, that makes you a traitor! You can't just—"

"Gotta go, boss," said Pakkun, with another capital-L Look, and then he poofed away.

Kakashi snorted in disbelief and flopped back on his couch. At least Naruto had gone away, though nothing else in the universe made any sense at the moment and his left arm was _really _starting to hurt where Sakura had hit him. He felt as if he'd just dragged himself back from a genuine battlefield, not the training grounds next door.

He turned over gingerly and stretched out, putting his head in the worn, squishy spot where his father had liked to sleep after missions; the fabric was nearly worn through, but it was still comfortable. It was familiar, and safe. In the dimness, he could just barely see two pairs of Sakura's shoes by his door, one of her jackets tossed on the floor by his television, and he knew she had a toothbrush in the bathroom for the nights when she ended up passing out on the couch from chakra deprivation.

She was always working double shifts at the hospital, but she would always drag herself over if she knew he was low on food or had been having a bad day— most days, for him, were the anniversary of _something_, a comrade dying or nearly dying himself or a particularly gruesome assassination— and he was beginning to think that perhaps he'd been just a little selfish.

Funnily enough, when he dragged himself upright and to the fridge hours later, it was full. She must have popped in before their 'duel' and dropped off some groceries.

"I'm an idiot," he said to Mr. Ukki, pulling out a bottle of his favorite beer and working the top off with a spare kunai. "I mean, that's not unusual for me or anything, but still."

"For a guy with a sharingan you're pretty blind," someone agreed loudly, though it was still a bit muffled through his door.

He blinked, then walked over and opened it. Sakura stood peering up at him, with wet angry eyes and a soft, guilty mouth.

"Hwa," he managed, gulping, because she was _really _pretty when she cried— she didn't do the whole red-nose snot thing, she just got kind of glittery with tears and turned even pinker— and then, rummaging around for his long-lost chivalry, "Want a beer?"

"Since I _bought _them," she sniped, with a damp little giggle, but she stepped inside with a cautious glance at him. "Kakashi, look, I'm really sorry for making you do that, I know you hate stuff like that and I shouldn't have gone through with it. Um, and you know, we can do this whole 'talk' thing later, if you want, I mean, or we don't even have to. Talk. I mean, uh, oh kami, I didn't mean that the way it sounded, I meant we could—"

He shoved another beer at her, floundering under his new realization. She took it and flicked the cap off with one chipped bright-pink nail.

Four big sips later, she seemed fortified enough to continue. "I babble when I'm nervous," she said, shifting her weight from one foot to another. "Um, and that's why— uh, you see, I made the mistake of telling a few people— ah, fuck it." She drained the rest of the beer, slammed it down on his counter, and then braced herself like she was about to send someone into orbit. "Look! Kakashi Hatake, I have a crush on you! Okay? And I'm sorry, and I know it'll ruin our friendship, and I know you don't even like that sort of thing, romance stuff, I mean, and I know it's stupid but I sort of always had this idea that if I _beat _you you'd respect me and then maybe you'd stop seeing me as your old student, or whatever, and— oh, I'm babbling again, I'm sorry."

She either ran out of breath or courage then, and hung her head miserably, turning almost as scarlet as the blood she'd worn earlier.

"I'm not—" he said hoarsely, and then, with a mental shake, "I like it when you babble, and I wish you'd told me that a long time ago."

"That— huh? Wait, what?"

"That you… that…" He winced, aware that he was making a total mess of this, but she was looking at him with those beautiful leaf-green eyes, lashes sparkling with teardrops, and he was a reclusive man, but nobody had ever called him a coward and lived, so he plowed on in desperation. "I don't mind romantic stuff. Small, um, romantic… stuff. With someone I actually like. Like, uh, like you. You remembered my favorite beer, I mean, that's pretty, uh…. romantic." Wasn't it? Oh, Kami, he hadn't done this in a while, and certainly never with someone of Sakura's caliber, and he would damn well brave the Yamanaka flower shop to buy her flowers if she wanted but he didn't know if she liked roses or daisies, which obviously—

"You've stopped breathing," she observed, cocking her head, looking rather flushed still but in a different way, as if she might float away. Kakashi ended up both breathing again and grinning at her like a schoolboy, a few inches off the ground himself. Then she went and got them both beers and plopped down on his couch, clicking on the television.

He sat down obediently and flung his feet up on the coffee table, just as he would any other night.

"You're so hard on your furniture," she sighed, just as she would any other night.

He stared at her in disbelief. "You just confessed your love to me and then you start nagging me?"

Her look was deadly. "If you want me to heal your arm you will never, ever accuse me of nagging again—" He stuck it out for her to fuss over, pleased, and she rolled her eyes. When she touched him, delicate, calloused fingers that could destroy a mountain sliding tenderly over his bare skin, he blew out a slow breath and got rather fixated on her dark pink lashes. "And I didn't say I love you. I said I _like _you, in a romantic way." Flashing him a very superior look, she added, "I mean, I beat the _Copy Ninja _himself today, in front of witnesses. You want my love, you'll have to earn it."

He smiled at her, and there must have been something telling in his face, because she suddenly had galaxies in her eyes and minty sparks on her fingertips. "I should warn you I'm terrible at this sort of thing. I don't like going out."

"When do I ever go out?" she said grumpily. "I only went out the other night because Ino wouldn't shut up, and I knew _you'd _be there."

"Really?" he said, delighted. "I only went because Gai dragged me. The whole time until you showed up I was wishing I was at home, taking a nap."

"Ooh, _naps_," she agreed enthusiastically. "Me too! And if we're doing warnings, you should know I'm wanted in eleven countries, so."

"Eleven?" he mumbled, a bit miffed. "I'm only wanted in ten. And you know— I mean, you had me on the ropes today, Sakura. I do respect you. I'm scared shitless of you, frankly, and I wouldn't want to meet you out in the field."

She was glowing; he resolved to compliment her more out loud, instead of silently inside his head. "Yes, well," she said modestly, finishing her healing with extra flair and a snap of green static. "I had a good teacher."

He snorted. "Did you?"

"Uh—"

"Second thought, don't answer that. It's probably a good thing you left me for Tsunade, anyway, she obviously had a very soothing and calming effect on your temper."

"I _will _rub your face in the dirt again," she threatened, laughing.

He drank in her laughter, and had to reach out and grip her knee to keep from drifting clean away on a dizzy cloud of surprised bliss. "Mm. Kinky. Did you know I've had a bit of a crush on your this entire time and didn't realize it?"

"Usually I have to beat men up before they understand the depth of their affection," she said solemnly.

"Understandable."

"Shut up. What's on tonight?"

"Do you _always_ have to flick channels like that! Just pick something and settle on it!"

"I'm _looking_," she said indignantly.

"This is literally what we've been doing for the past six months," he realized, rather put out. "We've been dating for six months and I didn't even know it."

She peered at him out of the corner of her eye, then wriggled a little closer, sending him into a wonderful tizzy. "I guess we've got months of kisses to make up for, then. You'd better get busy."

He very nearly passed out. That was a line straight out of Icha Icha. Perhaps he _was _in love with her. "Okay," he choked out, feeling as if all the good things he'd cursed the universe for denying him had suddenly been dumped in his lap all at once, in the form of a supple, tanned, gorgeous pink-haired woman with a smile like the sunrise.

She tasted like his favorite beer, too, which was a wonderful bonus.


	5. Chapter 5

**Four Seasons Circle**

**i. autumn**

She's sixteen, and Sasuke is still long gone. He's barely even a ghost any more.

Naruto and Sai are there, of course, and even Yamato has slunk out of the Yamanaka gardens' green shadows to pat her on the head and wish her a happy birthday. Sakura puts a smile on her face and tries very hard (she's stubborn, not like it's ever done her much fucking good) to put joy in her heart.

Sai's dark eyes mock her, and Naruto stares north over the looming trees too often when he thinks she isn't looking.

There's no joy, and her leg still hurts where she'd broken it yesterday, despite all the chakra she'd poured into the jagged bone. Looking at her own bone was _not _an experience she relished, and in fact, shamefully, despite all her medic training, the memory makes her a tiny but nauseous. Tsunade would kick her ass to Wave Country and back if she knew. It'll be another scar, Sakura thinks blindly, ripping glossy silver paper and baby-pink ribbons off Ino's present. Ninja earn their scars, wear them like medals, but _too _many and everybody knows you're either a legend or a failure; her skin is already sugared with a hundred of them, and she's no legend. Not like Naruto.

"Thanks, Ino. It's so pretty." Pig's gotten her a fancy kimono, really expensive, and it's the lightest shade of green imaginable, shimmering with golden threads. It's the kind of thing only an heiress could afford, it will look great on Sakura, and it's the last thing she needs. She'll outgrow it before she wears it. It's a rare misstep on Ino's part. "I love it."

"It'll bring out your eyes," Ino nods, sounding as vapid as ever but with a knowing spark in her blue-steel gaze that makes Sakura wary. The cool, heavy hand Ino puts on Sakura's shoulder only adds to her nerves. "Wear your hair up when you wear it. You've got a pretty neck."

A genuine compliment, without a trace of rivalry. How unusual– but then, Sakura knows she's shit at hiding her feelings. "Thanks," she says again, making a vague gesture toward the gardens, lit softly with paper lanterns that showed off the fiery maples. "And, uh, for the party."

Ino is unappeased by the politeness, and in fact only looks more stern. "Exactly. A _party_. What do people do at parties? They have fun. Go have some fun, Forehead. I think you need to breathe a little deeper."

Damn Ino and her perceptiveness. "Whatever," Sakura says, getting up obediently nonetheless. That was the last present to open, and it's three minutes to midnight and the end of her first day of sweet sixteen.

It has not been so sweet.

_Hell, _says Inner, clearly disgusted. _We're whiny bitches, aren't we?_

Yes. Yes, Sakura is a whiny bitch. She has been blessed, with a teacher beyond compare, chakra control that few can rival, friends like Ino, and a team that knew her down to her brittle scarred bones. It made her feel guilty, and the guilt has her suddenly on the _outside_, staring in at everybody and their golden laughter like they're fish in a bowl. Why can't she feel that way anymore? It used to come so easy to her, that brightness, but now she has to fight and cling and battle for it.

She puts the kimono carefully aside, tells Ino truthfully that her eyelashes looked extra long tonight, and casts a discreet henge on herself, using nothing more than a dragon seal behind her back and a bare breath of chakra. Nobody notices when she slips out the northern garden gate into the bottomless darkness of Konoha's wild forests.

It smells like rich damp earth, sweet, decaying leaves, and the air has a hint of inexplicable sharpness that makes Sakura think it might snow soon. She keeps walking, straight ahead into the black, pushing whip-thin branches out of her face and letting the sliver of moon above guide her feet when her chakra can't.

Each breath is heavy and familiar, and she breathes faster and faster, scouring her lungs.

She's got a fragile web of chakra spread out already, to help her see the forest floor and hopefully_not _fall on her face, so she feels Kakashi almost before she sees him. He's an ominous shadow above her head, perched in the crook of a battered old oak.

Still, in the split second between noticing him and hearing his rusty, rather confused, "Yo?", she is startled, and of course she manages to trip on a rock and fall on her face anyway, in the most un-shinobi way imaginable.

"Yo," she croaks resignedly into the dirt. It's rough with pine needles and twigs, but still warm from the sun, and suddenly she's exhausted. "Are you going to make fun of me if I just stay here for a while?"

There's a rustle above, then, in a still-scratchy voice, "No." He sounds like he means it, too.

"Were you asleep?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

"It's okay. I sort of doubt you were out here hunting _me_, anyway."

Sakura didn't know what she's hunting for. It certainly isn't fucking Sasuke anymore. "No, but you're an okay consolation prize."

A short, dry bark of laughter. He sounds like Pakkun with a head cold. "You sound like Pakkun with a head cold."

"You shouldn't flatter people so much, Sakura, it'll make them suspect your motives."

"Mmmmwha'ever," she slurs lazily, flipping over onto her back so she can see him, and the stars. His hair is a faint moonbeam echo against the oak branches, but that's all the detail she can see in his silhouette.

She doesn't see much detail about Kakashi even in the daylight, come to think of it. He's so rarely around the team anymore, and she's been hearing rumors that he's taking mission after mission back to back, anything to get him out of the village, anything for a distraction– "Let's go on a mission sometime."

"From what I hear, you'll surprise me," he says promptly, sounding a tad more awake. She snickers a little. That definitely wasn't a yes, but she'll let it slide, because Kakashi is harder to pin down than a greased-up Orochimaru.

"Maybe." Unlikely, despite how far she's come; it still isn't far enough, and her eyes have been trained to only see the empty. The moonlight brightens just a little as a misty cloud drifts off, and now she can smell iron. Her stomach twists. "Are you hurt?"

Hesitation, an almost palpable wave from the ever-secretive Kakashi, and she considers just getting up and leaving him in peace, but the trees are whispering a lullaby and Ino is undoubtedly pissed. "Only a little," he says finally. "I just… didn't feel like going in yet. It's a nice night, and it'll be cold soon."

Sakura can understand that, so she says nothing, earning a rather surprised snort from her ex-sensei. Still, she is a medic, so she opens her eyes wide, stares at the icy, glittering stars, and gathers up her chakra into a buzzing, whirling mass. She sends a single tendril up towards Kakashi, as thin as she can make it, focusing on one star like it just might save her life.

He inhales sharply, shifts a bit, but doesn't move. Such boundless trust from a ninja as extra-paranoid as he is touches her. She concentrates harder, feeling sweat break out on her forehead, and brushes his chest with her chakra from fifteen feet away without moving a muscle.

The lone star is soft and pale, like a corpse. Her wide eyes begin to water, but she doesn't blink, or loose her deathgrip on the chakra tendril. Kakashi is dehydrated, and a little cold, and he's bleeding from a four-inch slice in his outer left thigh. It feels like a kunai wound, with clean edges, but it could conceivably be from a wind or water jutsu too.

The 'how' doesn't matter. The star is blurry now, and her chest hurts as she gulps air and digs her fingers into the loose soil. Kakashi doesn't move. She and her chakra tendril close up his wound slowly, thoroughly, flushing out any infection and smoothing the skin.

It's silly. He's got a zillion scars– the Copy Ninja _is _a legend. But she'll leave him with a whisper-pink smudge instead of a rough knot, because she's good at _something._

"Thank you," he tells her, sounding bemused, after she's pulled her chakra back inside.

"Your blood was stinking up the forest," she answers, yawning until her jaw cracks.

They don't say anything more, but he doesn't leave. He doesn't ask _her _to leave, so she stays, and eventually Sakura falls asleep with Kakashi's breathing in her ears and photonegative afterimages of constellations swimming behind her eyelids. She's had worse birthdays.

**ii. winter**

The frozen ground creaks and groans as it shatters; she keeps hitting, viciously, slowly, letting each blow's tremors give a final death-rattle before striking again.

"Making a canyon, hmm?" says Kakashi. "Ambitious."

"I've _explained _this to you–"

"Humor me," he says cheerfully, lowering his book a scant inch, which she thinks perhaps means he's actually interested. Then again, she _has _been destroying Konoha's southern forests for four hours and counting, so maybe he's got a right to be curious.

"Every time I hit–" Another blow, and the force of it sends her hair flying back with a _whoosh_. She has to squint against the whipping dirt and rubble, and she needs a hasty application of chakra to keep her feet glued to the wobbling earth. "–Microscopic fractures occur in my bones–" Her panting breaths fall white and misty from her open mouth, and Kakashi looks like a dragon. The half-hearted snow that's falling disappears into his hair. "–And since the regrowth will be stronger–" Another hit, although she's running low on chakra now, and her teeth click together from the force. "–Eventually the bone gets stronger."

Kakashi rides out the next mini-earthquake with easy grace and flicks the page. She still doesn't know why he's here, but the company is sort of nice, even if it's weird to have an audience. Maybe he's evaluating her. Wondering if he'd made a mistake abandoning her to Tsunade's brutal tutelage. Fury sneaks a rough shout past her lips as she spends the last of her energy in one final hit.

The tortured earth, glimmering with muddy snow and torn open to show the black barren innards, shouts back, and rocks fly. She manages to drag herself over to Kakashi before going to her knees, but it's a close thing.

He peers down at her. She gives up the fight and flops backwards, shivering when her sweaty bare shoulders hit the training grounds wall, even though she's warmer than she's been in weeks, adrenaline-hot blood burning in her exposed skin, sharp and almost painful contrast to the bitterly cold air.

"Terrifying," is all he says, and she can tell he feels awkward because he's focusing with incredible intensity on his book– gross– but it's the last straw, it's genuine, and her heart finally thaws out.

"I know," she smirks. "If you ever came to train with us, I could really show you something."

He snorts indelicately and shakes his shaggy head. There are crow's feet wrinkles beginning to fan out delicately from the corner of his eye, and his hair is getting longer than usual. She knows he cuts it himself, with a kunai, when he feels like it; that was the fact he told her last week, when she 'ran into' him at Ichiraku's and commented on his ridiculously messy, horrifyingly cute mini-ponytail.

The week before, she ran into him while he was hiding from Gai, and while they were lurking in the chilly, snow-piled alley, he told her, to her neverending delight, that he knew how to knit, but only scarves. The week before _that_, they'd met up at Tsunade's office for a meeting, and after trying desperately to hide their laughter afterward (Shikamaru had been using tendrils of shadow to switch her sake cup from one side of her desk to the other, and Tsunade threw him out the window when she figured it out) Kakashi had told Sakura that he didn't like sake. He preferred beer, nothing hard, and he'd even seemed a little shy about his preferences.

Every fact she learns is a surprise to her, shows a new facet of him; she has no idea why he shares with her, other than her recently hard-learned patience and some judicious free food-related bribes, but she gathers them all up carefully and stores them away. They're gifts, and she's growing to like the weight of them, secret and soothing in the back of her mind, things that have been chosen for _her_ and nobody else. She has earned them.

"Why not," she persists, not bothering to hide how winded she is. She's seventeen now, and there's a bounty on her head in every country, and she finally knows that nobody will judge her for breathing hard, even if Inner is currently prodding her to get up and start turning trees into toothpicks.

_In a fucking minute,_ she tells Inner irritably. When did her thoughts start sounding so much like… Inner? Were they finally going to meet in the middle?

He shrugs and turns another page, slouching more firmly against the wall. The man is going to die with a spine like a slinkie if he doesn't work on his posture; she pokes him in the back of the knee almost without thinking, and he yelps and flails for half a second

"Stand up straight," she orders, a little nervous as to how he's going to react. He's not fond of being touched, really. It seems to make him both scared and irritated.

He scoffs, but he straightens up, just a bit.

"Maybe I'll stop by one of these days, if I get time," he murmurs at last.

She doesn't bother to hide her fist pump of victory, and in fact she drums her heels in the snow. She's always worn her heart on her sleeve, and she is growing tired of smothering it. Kakashi looks down at her with raised eyebrows, hitai-ate pushed a little askew. She thinks from this angle maybe she can see a glint of scarlet in the shadow of it; it's the only bright and real thing in an ocean of white and brutal black.

_You're bright too, Pinky, _snaps Inner. _You just can't see yourself right now._

True, if irrelevant. She realizes she's been staring too long at Kakashi's windchapped face and looks away. He's pale now, in the wintertime, lacking his usual deep summer tan, and it makes him look oddly human, and fragile. Less legendary.

"That would be very nice," she says finally, pulling her face into some semblance of normalcy, before shoving her handful of snow down the top of his boot and leaping away. His high-pitched shriek merges with her hysterical laughter, and the earth shakes again as she runs for her life.

**iii. spring**

"This is for me?" she says, utterly confused, not only as to _why _Kakashi's handing her a gift but as to what the hell it actually is. It's fluffy, certainly, but that's about all she can tell.

"If you don't want it, I'll give it to someone else."

He actually sounds a little hurt, and the fact that Kakashi, of all emotionally compromised people, is giving her (speaking of emotionally compromised people) something she suspects might be a hand-knitted scarf is so rare and precious that she must tread lightly. She doesn't hug him, though she's a hugger and that's her first instinct, but she claps him on the shoulder the way she's seen men do to each other.

He stares at his shoulder, then at her, blinking owlishly. "Thank you," she says finally, clearing her throat beforehand to make sure it doesn't come out all mushy and choked, because that would positively horrify him.

_Bullshit, _cackles Inner. _Last week when you were fucking sobbing in the hospital specimen room he didn't run. In fact he brought you a hot chocolate. _

Sakura ignores that, and hopes that her face isn't turning as red as it feels. She is nineteen now, and Kakashi's facts-turned-life-story are still kept close to her heart, and sometimes she relishes the way people fear her, but she _always _relishes his company, even when he's being fucking annoying and weird, which is usually. She also relishes the way he makes 5 a.m. coffee for her when he shows up at her apartment before their morning spars. Probably it's because he knows she just might kill him without caffeine.

"It's your favorite color," he supplies, looking rather frog-faced and hunching until his shoulders touch his ears.

"Yeah. I like it. I really do." She does, actually, and she doesn't bother to brush off the tiny pink plum-blossom petals that have landed on it before winding it around her neck.

He looks satisfied. Maybe? He looks less nervous, anyway. "I told you I could knit."

"That's true," she says, grinning, and then she hops up on the bridge beside him, legs swinging off the railing and scarf swinging in the floral breeze. She tilts her face up to the watery sunlight, eyelids falling to blissful halfmast. It feels good on her face, and the almost-touch tingle of Kakashi's body heat beside her feels good too, and the scarf is soft around her neck; for once, she feels entirely and unapologetically unbroken.

Kakashi is enjoying the first warm-ish day of the year too, she knows, because he's turning the pages of his porn more slowly than normal, and every now and then he lifts his gaze over the book's edge, to look at the laughing water below them and the soft blue sky above.

There is a buzzing in Sakura's chest, right next to Kakashi's secrets and somewhere near her chakra. "I guess I owe you a gift now," she muses. "But what do I get the man who has everything? A new and uglier shuriken print rug? More flea baths for his dogs? The _choices–"_

"My dogs do _not _have fleas," he protests vehemently, letting the book fall entirely to wheel around and face her ; she snickers behind her hand, and he gets that still, careful expression that he wears so much lately, like he's just waiting for the delicate thing they're holding to drop and shatter, like he doesn't know the taste of hope anymore.

Sakura has sure and steady hands, even for a ninja, and every day she's less afraid, stronger. She'll hold it for both of them until he figures shit out.

"_Men_," says Inner, very resignedly. Kakashi eyes Sakura and her scarf, and a tiny sliver of his chakra brushes a petal out of her bangs.

"Show off," she says, looking at the sun again to hide her flush. Kakashi appears to be doing the same thing behind his book.

**iv. summer**

The green kimono is rich and lavish against her skin, and the sunlight is scorching against her bare feet, which are the only part of her not in the shade. The oak tree above them sways heavily in the syrupy warm wind, wearing an equally lovely coat of emerald green. _Everything _is green, in fact, and rich, and beautiful– the latter especially applies to Kakashi, who is snoozing with his head in her lap.

She is having a hard time breathing. The golden threads of the kimono are ever-so-slightly raised under her fingertips, like the scars on Kakashi's skin when she tentatively lays a hand on his bare shoulder.

He cracks his exposed eye to peer at her. She moves her head to the side, to fully shade his face, and he smiles, eye sliding shut again. Even with half a face, it's breathtaking, and even if he is gorgeous under the mask, she knows it won't compare to the way he's making her feel right now. Her hair is tied up, the breeze is caressing her neck, and the forests are ringing with a tapestry of birdsong.

She is twenty, and she has caught a unicorn. She has tamed the beast, and rescued the (tall lanky scarecrow) damsel, and though she wants to dance, she has to settle for wriggling her glitter-painted toes in quiet glee. She is warm from her marrow out, and a less pessimistic kunoichi, one with a whole team and fewer scars, would call it peace, but she'll settle for calling it good.

When she thinks he's totally asleep, she whispers, "Thanks. For everything."

Even under the mask, she sees his mouth curl into a grin.


	6. Chapter 6

wee drabble i did for kakasaku week, for the theme of Thunderstorm/Summer rain :) side note: you can find more of my writing on my tumblr, if you're interested, including other fandoms. the link is on my profile! :)

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She opened the door at midnight expecting Ino, or maybe Naruto come to harass her for food because he forgot to go shopping _again _and Ichiraku's had closed. She was definitely not expecting Kakashi in the rain, soaked to the bone with his wild hair plastered down to his grinning, masked face. It made him look really _different_, kind of younger but mostly more raw. He pushed it impatiently back again, she tried not to stare at the new and interesting curve of his cheekbones, and he said, "Are you going to let me drown, then?"

"Oh," she stammered, standing back to let him in. "No."

He slipped past her like a salmon, then dropped to his knees on her kitchen linoleum and shook himself exactly like a dog. "What the hell," Sakura yelped, wiping her face, then staring in dismay at the mud all over her floors.

He was still grinning as he got back up and popped his back loudly. "I figured out what your birthday present was."

The rain thundered louder on the thin roof of her shitty apartment, and she realized they were nearly shouting, even safe inside. "What do you mean, was?" Her birthday had passed three weeks ago, and she hadn't even mentioned it to Kakashi. She didn't want to press him into trying to figure out a present. They were still figuring out the tentative steps to their weird, careful dance, and the little they_did _know so far was fragile and strange. Kind of like him, the dripping idiot.

She got him a towel from her bathroom and perched on the arm of her couch, examining the way his shirt was sticking to his chest under pretense of examining her nails.

"You're not very subtle," he admonished, sounding amused, but his ferocious blush gave him away when she glanced up.

"Tsunade's not subtle, and she's Hokage."

"True. But at what terrible cost?"

Sakura snorted. He flung the towel on her floor extravagantly, then immediately picked it back up and hung it off her kitchen chair before raising his eyebrows at her. "Well?"

"Well _what?"_

"Go put clothes on. We're going to get you your birthday present, and I can stop suffocating under guilt and your friend _Ino's _constant attempts at sabotage."

"Ha. She's still after you? Sorry. I'd call her off if I thought she'd listen."

He chuckled a little, low in his throat, barely audible beneath the rumbling storm, and suddenly Sakura was pulling on her collar and whispering, "I'll go get dressed," as she fled to her room.

She _understood _why they hadn't kissed yet, she really did, and she was doing her damnedest to act like the mature twenty-four year old she was supposed to be. She was trying to be supportive, and kami knew they both had issues. He imploded quietly whenever she was late coming back from a mission, while she slept at the hospital, waiting and praying, whenever _he_ was late. She stocked his fridge and walked his dogs and healed his aching bones after their morning spars. He let her cry on his shoulder when she lost a patient and never mentioned it again, and he let her open old wounds just so she could understand him. They were gifting themselves to each other piece by delicate piece, had been doing so cautiously for years without even realizing, but now that the _possibility_ of a kiss was on the table–

She swallowed, fanned herself again, and fixedly did _not _look at his clinging wet shirt when they left her apartment. It was warmer than she'd expected outside, even for a Konoha summer night, and the fierce rain was almost hot against her uplifted face.

"Coming?" said Kakashi, all sly and amused again to hide his real feelings about whatever he was plotting. He stumbled and yelped when she grabbed impulsively for his hand and took off, joy thrumming in her veins.

The streets were empty, muddy and slick, and they were two of the best shinobi in the world; they didn't need any light to see by. They skidded blindly around the next corner at full ninja speed, whooping with laughter as water sprayed beneath their boots. Sakura closed her eyes and let him lead her by the hand, let him sling her around buildings and crash her through the deepest puddles, and held her face and open mouth into the hot, whipping rain.

She only opened her eyes when they started going up steps. "The monument?" she shouted, shoving her dripping bangs out of her face.

He only glanced at her with one smiling grey eye. Lighting flashed very close, and then thunder groaned; she felt blinded for a moment, shocked, and she held his hand tighter as they ran, feet slipping on the wet stone.

The plateau top of the Hokage monument was flat, broad, and empty of trees. Sakura felt immediately exposed, and when lightning tore across the black sky, she yelped like a genin. "Kakashi, I am so _not _getting killed because you feel bad about something stupid–"

"It's not stupid," he interrupted mulishly, swiping a hand over his rain-soaked face. "Just, hang on– come here. _Sakura._ Don't look at me like that! Where's the_trust_, I ask, a tear in my eye?"

"That's _rain_," she shouted, but she followed him like she always did, even as her skin began to buzz and prickle. The storm was at its height now, a real Fire Country monsoon, and the whole world was safe inside a house or tree or rock, except them. "We've got the village to ourselves!"

Kakashi laughed, but she couldn't hear it over rumbling thunder. She could only watch the slick line of his throat as he threw his head back, and the shift of his broad shoulders when he stopped and turned to her.

He had to stand close to her for her to hear him. "We're here. Happy, uh, late birthday."

She blinked at him through lashes heavy with raindrops. "Thank you?"

He smiled again, a faint temptation beneath his dark mask, and then he took her by the shoulders and turned her around until her back was pressed against his chest. He left a hand on her shoulder, and held the other out on front of them.

Sakura stared at it, very aware of how tall and firm he felt, how enveloping as he held her against him. He wasn't wearing his gloves, for once, and his long, naked fingers looked almost too thin without them. He had delicate hands, really, not that she'd ever tell him that. He'd get all defensive. But they_ were_ delicate, like his long dark lashes and his elegant nose and the strong swoop of his collarbone. He had beautiful bones, _sinful _phalanges, and she watched in hypnotized silence as static began to hum across her skin again.

Blue lightning pulsed on his fingertips, then gathered in his palm with slow precision. The chidori was loud, she knew, like a bunch of really pissed off birds, but now, with the storm roaring in her ears, it was quiet, and for the first time she appreciated how beautiful it was.

"Hold still, okay, Sakura?" he said in her ear. He sounded _nervous_, which was cute but also not at all reassuring, considering the very heavens seemed to be tearing themselves apart.

She nodded, wiping her eyes clear of rain again. He weighed the chidori in his palm for a moment, then threw it straight up into the roiling clouds.

Lighting drawn by the chidori blazed from all directions, straight _at_ them, all around them, then struck with an impossibly loud crack, and for a heartbeat the entire valley was etched in starkest black and white. Sakura tensed, of course, under instincts honed for _years,_ but Kakashi gripped her arm tight as the lightning-torn ground across the plateau shuddered and twisted.

The area all around them stayed put, though. When Sakura spun around to point accusingly at Kakashi, the jagged, dragonish shapes of the lightning stayed glowing across her vision, greenish and strange. "What the hell!"

He bent low, and his masked lips brushed her ear as he said loudly between claps of thunder, "Lightning chakra, remember? I wouldn't let you get cooked. Tsunade'd kill me." Lightning was still streaking across the sky, flashing regularly until Sakura could barely tell the difference between what she saw with her eyes and what she sensed with her chakra.

She shook her dizzy, dripping head, and then realized she was grinning up at him like a fool. He didn't seem amused now, though, as he stared down at her. Instead he looked thoughtful, maybe a little scared. She frowned and tried to read the furrow between his brow as the next bolt of lightning struck bright, somewhere way down in the valley.

When the next bolt hit, she saw his bare face as he pulled his mask down, and thunder roared like her pulse as he slid beautiful, shaking fingers into her rain-soaked hair and pulled her mouth to his.


End file.
